Day 27: Wellness Reflection and Saying Goodbye

I have many feelings about leaving Xizhou. The most prominent one the feeling of excitement to meet my friends back in Shanghai. I feel like I have missed a lot and can not wait to get back. But there are other feelings of sadness that I wish I could stay here longer. I think that I have come to really enjoy Xizhou and wish I could stay longer. I think that there are many people but in the community, I think that I really like Mr. Yang and do not want to leave. From the linden centre, I think that I will miss the most, Mr. Yang and Mr. Linden. I think this is because they were all really kind to me and I have enjoyed being around. I think the three things I will miss most about Xizhou and the Microcampus experience is the amount of information there is out there and the freedom we have to look into the information. The third thing that I will miss most is the beauty of the mountains, lake and days. I am not feeling stressed at all about the SAS essentials. I almost feel a little ahead in some subjects like Science. I like how I was able to organize the work so I could get more done in the time that I had. During the Microcampus trip, I learned many things about myself. I think the most prominent thing is that I love to be able to solve problems and if there is something I do not know about I want to go out and learn about that thing. I think that the most important thing I learned is that organizing my own time is the way that I can get the most done. I also think what Mr. T taught us about filler words I will try to stay away from and not use in school.

During this trip, I did not have many challenges unlike many people I have been through almost all of these challenges time and time again during my summers and Christmases. The closest that came to a challenge was rooming with two other people and being with a group of sixteen kids. I am a little of an introvert and being with a huge group of people for twenty-eight days was a little challenging. As for the camping and hiking and power outages I have gone through those "challenges" so many times that they are not even challenges anymore. I think that I made it through the extrovert challenge and had fun connecting with people. I think the goal of personal growth happened although I do not think there were enough challenges. I grew a lot but not in the way of physical or mental challenges in the way of being with a group of sixteen people for twenty-eight days. I think that the goal of expanding intercultural understanding was achieved. I think that I connected with the local people a lot and got to know about their culture and geography. I think awareness of impact was the goal that I achieved the most. over the course of the trip, I did not use anyone uses containers and even asked other people not to use them. I was also very aware of voices and inner circle impact. I did have some challenges though with being in big groups.

Comments

It seems that you got to know yourself a bit better on this trip. I also understand how things can feel bittersweet - you are both sad and happy to leave at the same time. This happens a lot as you get older I think. I suppose feeling bittersweet about a transition is positive in a way, however. It means that you had a positive experience, and you are looking forward to something different but still positive. That is a pretty great situation to be in!

I know that you have learned a lot from your summers at Wanapitei. You've learned to be away from us, to be a bit 'uncomfortable', to work with others, etc. However I am really curious to know what hardships you've had to overcome during Christmas. Ha!

I am 14 years old and really enjoyed Microcampus. I am Canadian although I was born in Shanghai, China and have lived there for almost my whole life. Other than the nine years I lived in China, I lived in Canada for four. I liked showing my learning of Xizhou into the final product. I had fun and learned a lot by creating the Service Learning video